


Sown Sorrow

by chimneysmoke (recension)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Affairs, F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-27
Updated: 2013-12-27
Packaged: 2018-01-06 08:18:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1104553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/recension/pseuds/chimneysmoke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Neville/Ginny, cover me in rag and bone sympathy, cause i don't want to get over you"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sown Sorrow

**Author's Note:**

> For the _Welcome Home_ Harry Potter LJ ficathon.
> 
> Original prompt: "Neville/Ginny, cover me in rag and bone sympathy, cause i don't want to get over you"

Neville would drown in Ginny's kiss if he could choose his way to die. Pressed up against her, their skin slick in a weekend afternoon romp with her husband miles away. Her thighs, toned from hours of Quidditch practice, wrapping around him, squeezing his hips as her lips make demands with hot kisses.

They each have others, of course. She's with Harry, six months from a wedding. He's with Hannah, a year from an engagement but still she comes to him every Saturday like clockwork, opening the door to his cottage and inviting herself in.

In ways he can't explain he feels like he's cheating on Ginny when he's with Hannah. Ginny came first, after all, and he knows he came before Harry for her, but for all his courage and fight in the war he'd never had the audacity to ask her to stay with him. 

She'd hex him into next week if he ever phrased it this way, but he felt like Ginny was Harry's hard-won and well-deserved prize. It was as if the Weasleys, him, even Ginny was saying: You made it through the war and we can't repay you, but here's the woman you love.

But every Saturday like clockwork she would break away for an hour or two and come to him, and lay under him or on top of him and be with him. She'd spread her legs and beg for him and press her tongue against his in desperate moves. She'd cry out his name at the top of her lungs when he brought her over and light his nerves on fire with soft fingertips and short fingernails and careful brushes of freckled skin until he joined her in ecstasy.

Neville gives her what she comes for because it's easier than not, but as time goes on it's getting more complicated. It's getting harder and harder to not say "I love you," to Hannah. It's getting harder and harder to not ask Ginny to stay. He's being torn in two directions and all he feels is hollow because he wants to be selfish and he wants no one to end up hurt. In the end he goes for both and the one who takes the fallout is him, his heart pummeled into sacrificial submission as he tries to keep the affair afloat.

Ginny lays in his arms on the rug of the bedroom when they're finished. 

They never have sex in the bed so he doesn't have to change the sheets for Hannah. She curls up against him like she did all those nights at Hogwarts during the war and traces shapes on his chest.

Sweet, dependable Neville. Fearsome when needed. Steady and damaged, with no ego to speak of and sorrow overcome by hope. She loved him. She'd always love him. He was the man she wished Harry would become after all the evil faded. To her dismay she still sees more Tom than Neville in Harry at every turn.

When she gets up, when their time is over, she always dresses and acts like what has just happened hasn't, and will never again. At least they no longer bother lying to one another by saying: "This was absolutely the last time." 

He has no doubts when it is the last time there will be no discussing it. She'll write a seemingly-casual owl that Harry wants to start having children, and that will be the end of it. 

He'll backslide into the ordinary life meant for him. He'll say goodbye to his last ties to That Time When He Was A Hero. He'll marry Hannah, he'll tend his garden. He'll sow his sorrow until something brighter blooms.

He dreads the day.


End file.
